in the offered lamb establish the truth. — “Prayer to the Gods of Night,” Babylonian poetry (David Ferry, trans.)

Babylonian poetry — The Babylonian Empire emerged from the consolidating efforts of their King Hammurabi (1696–1654 BC). Taking their language from their predecessors — the Akkadians for spoken language and the Sumerians for written religious language — the Babylonians developed the potential of rule by empire first begun by the Akkadians. While the “Epic of Gilgamesh” is the most famous example of Babylonian poetry (translated from the original Sumerian), other texts are also extant in clay tablet form. In fact, last September, Cambridge scholars unlocked the mystery of what Babylonian language sounded like by devising a pronunciation key.